Slowly, I lowered my head. Alarms were going off louder than the siren on my squad car warning me to stop, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not anymore. I didn’t have a choice. It wasn’t in my power to stop. I needed to taste her. Now.
I heard and felt her sharp intake of breath as our lips touched for the first time. I’d fantasized about this moment more times than I could count, and every time I did, our kiss was desperate. Demanding. Ravishing. Frantic. Every time this scenario had played out in my mind we’d devoured each other.
But unlike what I’d envisioned, the reality was…more. More intimate. More connected. More everything.
Her soft lips sealed to mine as her arms wrapped around my neck and she lifted up on her toes. Needing to touch her, my hands framed her chin, tilting her head. I brushed my lips across hers then pulled first the bottom and then the top between mine and repeated the motion, nipping them lightly before running my tongue along the seam.
As tempting as it was to deepen the kiss, to try to sate what I feared was the insatiable hunger that I had for Harmony, I didn’t. Instead, I deliberately kept the pace measured. A part of me understood this moment would never happen again, that this was once in a lifetime. I had to savor it, to protect it like the precious gift it was. Somehow I knew that this kiss was like a slow burning wick of a firecracker that would explode once our tongues touched. I wouldn’t be able to hold back. So I held her in place, not letting her take control. I took my time memorizing every second, every feeling, every sensation, every sound.
As if on cue, a loud buzz went off and I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket at the same time a loud pop song started playing from hers. I tried to ignore them both and from the death grip that Harmony had as she tightened her hold on me, she was doing the same.
This might be our first kiss, but my entire body was responding as if it knew her. It was in the way the curves of her body molded to mine, it felt familiar, not foreign. It was like she was made to be pressed against me. Like I was made to hold her. I continued my slow, caressing exploration of her beautiful mouth, determined not to let the fact that both of our phones had gone off at the same time interrupt us.
It wasn’t until first mine and then her phone dinged with a voicemail notification and started buzzing and playing again that I knew this moment might be once in a lifetime, but it was over.
Reluctantly, I broke our kiss and when I did her emerald eyes opened with a heavy-lidded stare.
“Wow,” she breathed out, as she looked up at me with a glazed expression.
A smile pulled at the corner of my lips as a sense of pride filled me, knowing that I was the one that put that look there. That she might feel just as overwhelmed by what had just happened as I did.
Before I had a chance to respond, several text messages came through at once and we both grabbed our phones.
“Destiny’s in labor,” we said at the same time.
“I have to go. She’s already dilated to seven!” her voice was filled with panic.
“I’ll drive.” Not waiting for her to respond I picked her up and carried her over the pile that I’d made intentionally high and precarious in hopes to scare her off.
It hadn’t. But it sure as hell had scared the shit out of me.
Romeo was barking as we made it to the other side of the wood heap and he fell in step beside us. I continued carrying her until we got to my truck, not ready or willing to let her go.
Now that I knew she tasted sweet like honey and strawberries, I knew the gasping sound she made when my tongue touched her lips, the way her back arched when I sucked her lip between mine, the way her hips rocked when I bit her lightly—I wasn’t sure how in the hell I would ever be willing or ready to let her go.
The thought scared me more than anything else ever had.
Chapter 13
Harmony
“You look more confused than a boy ladybug.”
~ Loretta Reed
“Am I too late?” I called out before the sliding doors that led into the maternity wing even opened.
“No!” Cara jumped up from my brother’s lap and ran over to me. She threw her arms around my neck. “I’m so happy you made it in time!”
I held my friend and felt my eyes fill with tears. I wasn’t sure if the newly-sprung waterworks were because of what had happened back at the barn—which I couldn’t even begin to process—or the fact that I was about to be an auntie for the first time.
Growing up, Destiny, Cara and I had always promised that no matter what, we would be there for life’s big milestones. Graduations. Weddings. Births.
The big three.